Sri Lankas High Commissioner Prasad Kariyawasam highlighted the importnace of using traditional knowledge and folklore as tools for creating peace and stability in the South Asian region.
Delivering the key note address at the inauguration ceremoney of the 4th SAARC Folklore and Heritage Festival, he stated it was important to consider folkore as fundamental experience of human life and not as a vestige of pre-industrial societies.
Organised by the Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature (FOSWAL), the three-day festival held in Agra brought academics, experts in folklore, poets, dancers, artists, musicians, archaeologists and government officials from the region.
Participants from Sri Lanka included Secretary of the Ministry of Culture and the Arts, Wimal Rubesinghe and Professors Ariyarathne Kaluarachchi, Jayasena Kottegoda, Tissa Kariyawasam and Praneeth Abhayasundara.
The fifteen-member Ravibandhu-Samanthi Dance Ensemble and a troupe led by Professor Ariyarathne Kaluarachchi from Sri Lanka joined dancers and performers from the South Asia region to perform in several venues in Agra during the Festival.
At the conclusion of the Folklore Festival, the Ravibandhu-Samanthi Dance Ensemble will travel to Chandigarh, Delhi and Chennai for performances organised jointly by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and the High Commission of Sri Lanka in India.